This invention relates generally to impulse or demand ink jets, and more particularly, to such ink jets wherein a piezoelectric transducer has an axis of elongation so as to expand and contract along the axis of elongation, thereby changing the volume of ink in an ink jet chamber including an orifice.
In such demand ink jets, it is common practice to utilize a plate-like structure where the plates extend transverse to the axis of the orifice and transverse to the axis of elongation of the transducer. Such an ink jet apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,601, which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention and incorporated herein by reference. Since the transducer is transverse to the plate-like members, it is not possible to sandwich the transducers between the plate-like structure and thereby take advantage of the cost-effectiveness of this plate-like approach. Moreover, it is not possible to achieve high density arrays with different ink jets located in different plates stacked one on another.